For many years I have been engaged in a plant breeding program at my orchard located at Route 3, Fergus Falls, Minn. 56537. My new variety described herein resulted from such effort.
My new variety of Cherry-Plum Bush originated as a seedling from open pollination and having unknown parentage. Some Sapalta bushes were growing some distance away and these died by the time of my discovery. There were some suckers growing in the area of my bushes where previously some unknown varieties of cherry bushes had grown and died. What particularly led me to my discovery was the unusually sweet and delicious taste of the fruit. The fruit has a distinctive reddish purple color, it has but a small cavity, it is substantially freestone and has relatively thick flesh.
I asexually reproduced my new variety by grafting short stem buds having several buds each in the spring and by grafting single buds in the fall with the grafts being onto wild plum root stocks. Upon maturity my reproductions ran true to the parent bush.
My bush is distinguished from the Sapalta by being a more vigorous bush and having a greater disease and cold resistance and in having a fruit which is more disease resistant and which has a thicker flesh, a smaller pit and cavity and unlike the Sapalta it is almost astringent-free.